


Alone Together

by Heronfem



Series: No Church In the Wild [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Discussion of Violence, M/M, Motorcycles, Shibari, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heronfem/pseuds/Heronfem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is a bad place if you’re trying to forget.”</p>
<p>Dorian is right.  The bar is loud and hot and noisy, and Dorian is a dangerous temptation leaning against the table he’s sat himself at.  He tries not to glare, fails, glares, and gives up when Dorian raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow and steals his drink.</p>
<p>Or- A night in the life of The Iron Bull, mob boss, and not-quite-husband of Dorian Pavus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alone Together

“This is a bad place if you’re trying to forget.”

Dorian is right. The bar is loud and hot and noisy, and Dorian is a dangerous temptation leaning against the table he’s sat himself at. He tries not to glare, fails, glares, and gives up when Dorian raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow and steals his drink. Someone- possibly Sera- is dancing on a table on the other side to a riot of applause. Dorian’s rather plain this evening, jeans shoved into tall black boots and a flashy white coat over a dark shirt with some obscure reference to necromancy or something, and a collar wide enough to show off the marks Bull left there three nights ago.

“Have you come to make the leaving easier?” he asked, and Dorian snorted, setting the drink back down. His rings- all of them rigged with various spells that make Bull all kinds of nervous- glint viciously in the light. There’s a flecks of blood on two of them, and he pauses to look at Dorian a little closer. The makeup is pristine, but he can smell blood when Dorian exhales. “Who were you fighting?”

“Thugs.” Dorian shrugs, lifts a fork from the table, twirls it through his fingers. “One of them thought I’d be an easy way to spend an evening. I dissuaded him and his friend before I came here.”

Bull wants to kill everything. He tamps the desire down with years of training, finishes the drink, and stands. Dorian smiles sweetly up at him, his eyes gleaming in the half-light. They are strange, constantly shifting in color. Tonight, with the dark eyeliner on, they’re almost silver. 

“Oh, my sweet, beautiful man,” Bull croons, sliding his fingers under Dorian’s chin for a kiss, and is rewarded with a wicked smile and sharp nip to his lip before Dorian lets himself be gentled, soothing under the grip of Bull’s hand on his hip. He holds tight, just to the edge of pain, and Dorian goes sweetly pliant. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Rather scandalous things, I should hope,” Dorian purred, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. Bull checks his eyes. Just normal dilation, the usual mix of arousal and fight keeping his pupils wide with desire. No injuries, then.

“We’ll see.” He pulls his jacket off the chair, drapes it over one shoulder as Dorian steps under his arm, one hand coming up to hold his. Blackwall nods to them as they leave, sat at the bar with an actual Anderfel stein. The night is a blast of ice in comparison to the bar, a pleasant relief. His bike is a hulk of black steel and chrome, and Dorian swings on easily. The bright pink saddlebags are disconcerting against the black, but marks the bike as _his_ , and no one fucks with his things.

“Walked,” he says at the eyebrow Bull raises.

“All the way from the east side?”

Dorian shrugs, his eyes luminous in the neon lights. “Did I have anything better to do?”

Bull shrugs, climbs on, and the beast rumbles to life. His crew is elsewhere, gone for the weekend. Dorian curls up against his back, strong hands wrapping around to hold his belt. They’re out and away, lights flashing sharp and loud around them. This is the wrong side of town, far below where Dorian once lived, the palatial manse of the ancient houses sitting high above the city with the others of richest neighborhood. They weave around three cars with flashing lights, see the massive bulk of the Trevelyan twins out for their evening constitutional, one with a crowbar and one with a particularly nasty looking bat. It’s hard to say which is Maxwell and which is Evelyn. Dorian lifts a hand in salute as they pass, and Bull hears Maxwell’s laugh ring loud against the night air.

One day, he knows, things will change, but for now, he’s content with the Trevelyan’s thinking they own his neighborhood. Haven is his home, and it’s almost cute how they think it’s them who protect it.

The house simple, a short, one story almost-square. He idles in the drive to let Dorian pull the wrought iron gate open. No one has ever dared touch his things, but it looks nice. His roses are closed for the evening, but he spares a moment to gently touch the delicate blossoms along the little sidewalk. Dorian fumbles the door open, snapping in the harsh dialect of dockside Tevene that Krem thinks he doesn’t understand.

“You ever going to tell Krem you know what he’s saying when he gets like that?” Bull asks mildly, leaning against a pillar of his porch as Dorian fights the lock.

“Not a chance.” The lock gives, and Dorian opens the door- lavender, with delicate white sunflower motifs. The rest of the house is a pale grey, with white clapboard shutters, and wrought iron bars in the windows in the shape of crystal grace. “Besides, he’d be so mortally offended I wasn’t speaking it with him.”

He flicks the light on as he walks in, sliding his shoes off in the lowered entryway. Bull keeps his house in the northern way, with a place for shoes, and nothing but socks on his good hardwood floors, thank you very much. He closes the door, locks it, slides out of his shoes as Dorian meticulously unties his laces. He wanders further in, ignoring the closed bedroom door to his left and the open space of his living room to the right, going directly to the kitchen. “Beer?” he calls, and Dorian makes a sound of disgust he definitely picked up from Cassandra. “Your call.”

He opens the refrigerator, scowling when he sees only last nights leftovers and what appears to be a grenade.

“Fuckin’ Rocky,” he mutters, and Dorian pads into the kitchen.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he confirms. The refrigerator light flickers reproachfully. “Apparently, I need to get groceries.”

Dorian waves a hand. “Take out. What about that nice Rivaini place? They know us, they’ll come up. And if people stop them and they tell them whose house they’re going to, they might even get an escort.”

“Good idea.” He turns, shuts the door. Dorian has ditched both jacket and shirt, revealing the smooth lines of muscle and swirls of the arcane tattoo on his arm. Bull backs him into the island, kisses him hard and hungry. Dorian grabs his horns, holding him there with ease as they take their fill of each other. Bull’s tattoos on his back and shoulders, the swirling patterns of old vitaar styles that march up and over his body, tell a story not dissimilar from Dorian’s forced red marks. _They tried to change me, make me something else, and they have failed._ The patterns tell where he has served, but interspersed between them all are tiny things, flowers and crystals and weapons in beautiful colors, one Tevene style koi on his hip. They are a beautiful mash of colors together, Dorian’s dark against his. He wonders if Dorian would laugh if he had _amatus_ written in cursive over his heart, and kisses him deeper to drive the thought away. 

“I like you in jeans,” Bull mutters when they pause for breath. “Nice to see you in casual clothes, instead of those fancy slacks you like so damn much.”

“They make my ass look great,” Dorian grins, eyes flashing. Bull presses him harder against the island, sliding his thigh between Dorian’s legs to hear him groan, low and needy.

“Think you should make me forget,” Bull growls, lowering his head to drag his teeth over the marks that pepper Dorian’s neck. “What with you interrupting my nice evening out.”

“Is that what that was?” Dorian asks, breathless when Bull sucks hard on already tender skin, darkening the mark so it’s fresh.

“It was.” He bites, just to listen to the sweet whimper Dorian lets out. “Hush, sweetling.” An impossible request, and they both know it. “I’ll have you in the ropes soon enough.”

Dorian swears, a string of Tevene that Bull doesn’t even pretend to understand, it’s so heavily accented and quick. Bull steps back, pushes him just enough to make him stumble. Part of the game that they never really seem to stop playing.

“Bedroom,” he orders, and Dorian grins, sashaying away, tramp stamp on full display. Sharp lines, vaguely similar to Bull’s favored vitaar style. He’d been in Ferelden three days before getting it done. Met Bull a good six after that. Fucking destiny, Stitches had commented when he saw it the first time, and Skinner had laughed until she cried.

He follows, not surprised when Dorian’s already down to clinging, beautiful silk. He takes a moment to enjoy the sight he makes before bodily tossing him onto the bed. Dorian sprawls, languid on satin sheets. Bull’s bedroom is simple, just a bed, dresser, chaise lounge by the window (Dorian’s addition to his furniture), and bedside table. The closet is full to bursting with all sorts of interesting things, but for the evening, he opens up the bottom drawer of his dresser, pulls out red rope, and after a moment of hesitation, a towel.

“Really?”

“You’re on satin sheets, and it took me ages to get the last stains out,” Bull scolds with no heat, and Dorian tosses his head back laughing, the picture of grace.

“Very well, you made your point.”

Bull’s bed is a work of art. Just as opulent as his man, it has all sorts of clever, ingenious places to screw in hooks, hand holds, string chains, rope, and all sorts of other things. The tall posts, no canopy, each have slots deep enough that rope will go precisely nowhere when run through them. If he wanted, he could suspend Dorian from less than a foot from the ceiling. The footboard is just as beautiful as the headboard, though only just taller than the mattress. 

It is also a rather convenient height.

“Tell me about these thugs,” Bull says as he uncoils the rope, watches Dorian watching how it falls in a long line to the floor.

“Thoroughly uninteresting,” Dorian sums up, tearing his eyes away. “Young and dumb.”

Bull hums, winding the rope around his hands. Dorian licks his lips, squirming a little. “Try again.”

Dorian huffs, dragging one of the pillows under his head. “There were just the two of them. One was Antivan, I believe. The accent was faint, but there. Dark. Handsome enough, I suppose. Not quite up to my standards, but who is. The other… perhaps Orlesian? Blond. Rather thickset. His nose made a very satisfying crunch when I broke it.”

Bull smiles, climbing onto the bed and letting the rope fall. “ _Ataashi_ ,” he croons, and Dorian obligingly lets him pin his hands, kiss along his neck. “My sweet, deadly man. I’ll have to reward you for taking them out.”

Dorian purrs, rolling his hips up. “ _Fortis meus_ ,” he says fondly, his accent the rich curling rasp of Qarinus high streets. His words are soft and rough all at once, like kitten tongues with their early barbs. Bull kisses him over and over, pulling Tevene from his lips like breath, until Dorian is sweet and pliant beneath him. 

“How shall I have you?” he asks, kissing a dusky cheek. Dorian grins, laughing softly.

“Oh, I do love it when you get dramatic like that,” he says, and Bull kisses him quiet again.

He takes his time, fetching more rope in black to add to his work. Dorian’s arms go behind him, five diamonds and five holds looping to hold them steady, one loop around the throat after some discussion, and sturdy cuffs make the look. By the time he’s done Dorian is clearly floating. He kisses the back of his neck, making him hum.

“What’s your word?” he asks softly, one hand resting on Dorian’s thigh to tether him to reality.

“Katoh.”

“Good.” He kisses him again, presses him down, and fetches the lube. In all honesty, he’s not certain how he wound up in a monogamous relationship with a high class Tevinter mage with a rope fetish, but he can’t complain. They work well together, and he relishes the little joy it brings him when Dorian is so relaxed and open with him. He takes his time working Dorian open, whispers sweet nothings as Dorian whimpers and pants into the sheets, hands curling uselessly. He lets the world fade away to nothing but them, the soft sensations of skin on skin. Dorian’s head thrown back against his shoulder as he sinks down on his cock, the soft gasp of breath between them as Bull reclines on the pillows, rolls his hips as Dorian is forced to lay back, taking it, staring at the mirror on the ceiling. 

“Mine,” Bull whispers, watching them as Dorian’s toes curl. “All mine.”

It’s difficult to move like this, Dorian’s not inconsiderable weight on his chest, but he manages. Dorian’s feet braced on slippery satin make it interesting, and he reaches up to hold over Dorian’s heart as he drives in, slow and deep. He takes his time, savoring each time he’s buried to the hilt, the soft, helpless gasps he receives in response. Dorian strains against the ropes as his mouth opens in a silent scream, bliss on every inch of his features as he comes on Bull’s cock alone, and Bull smiles. It’s a rare day when he does well enough to silence him, and he takes a moment to still, let Dorian recover before carefully moving so he can press him down onto the bed instead, ass up, and go to town.

A good evening, he thinks in the afterglow, Dorian lounging in a silk robe on the chaise lounge under the window, ornate pipe twirling between his fingers as he blows smoke from it. He knows it’s all a trick as Dorian abhors smoking, but it’s fun to watch him make shapes from it.

“When will the little ones be home?” Dorian drawls, and Bull groans, stretching out on the bed. “I do so miss my stepchildren.”

“Stop encouraging them,” he says, watching a ship sail out of the pipe. “And to be a step parent would require me to be married before.”

“Then you admit we’re married now?” Dorian says archly, grinning at him wickedly. Bull rolls his eye, and Dorian rises in a whisper of fine cloth, setting the pipe on the bedside table. He watches with a heavy lidded eye as Dorian prowls across the bed, kneeling beside him. A graceful, be-ringed hand rests on his chest, running through what little fine hair there is. “I do adore having children.”

“Your children don’t call you from Antiva City Jail at 3 in the morning to bail them out after a hit gone wrong,” Bull says mildly.

“Of course not, _dear_.” Dorian kisses a scar, entirely too fond. “We all know you’re their mother. I’m simply here to make approving noises while reading the paper, and occasionally scold them for breaking your fine china. From what I understand, that’s what fathers are for.”

Bull chuckles. “I’d make a fine Tama.”

“You really would.” Dorian drops down, settling in the crook of Bull’s arm, resting his head on his shoulder. “Are you going to be out of town soon?”

“In two weeks.” Bull watches Dorian conjure tiny ice statues of the Chargers, smiling. “Fun little hit for Leliana in Val Royeaux. Then I get to deal with that mess the Trevelyan’s made a few weeks ago.”

Dorian hums, smiling. “So long as you stay busy, _amatus_.”

“Of course.”

“Also, you owe me Rivaini.”

Bull groans, laughing a little, and tosses him the legitimate cell to call for it. He orders the curry, and they both eat in bed with blissful joy at proper spices. No one in the damn city knows how to cook with spice but the Rivaini and the solitary Tevene place in town that Dorian and Krem near worship. Dorian is a comforting weight against his side, and when they’re finished, the boxes in the garbage and the lights out, he presses kisses to the junction of neck and shoulder, inhales deep. Dorian smells of sex and sandalwood and that faint, curling wisp of cardamom that seems imbedded in his skin. He pins him down, and Dorian goes willingly, pliant and sighing sweetly beneath him as Bull adds a new mark to his neck.

Dorian twists his fingers around Bull’s as he stays still under him, and Bull gently squeezes.

“ _Kadan_ ,” he murmurs, reverent. “ _Ataash kadan_.”

“ _Carrisme amatus_ ,” Dorian returns, slightly breathless. Bull growls against his neck to make him squirm, and they laugh soft together, Dorian pressed into the bed with just enough weight to help him feel safe.

“You should let them grow,” Dorian murmurs when he’s finally let up, and they slide under satin and Dorian curls into him, head on his shoulder, safe in the crook of his arm. “The claws, I mean.”

“You interested in them?”

“Mmm. Could be fun.” He kisses the skin closest to him, smiling. “If I ask nicely will you make me breakfast in the morning?”

Bull snorts, tightening his arm around him. “Only if you intend to go shopping with me.”

“Hmm, no. I’m not quite that domestic just yet. Also I hate those squeaky wheels on the carts. How’s brunch sound?”

Bull smiles, closing his eye. “We can do brunch.”

Tomorrow he will have to wake and deal with paperwork from the Carta. Call the Chargers. Make sure the job is going well, tell them about what’s going on in the city. Buy groceries. Talk to the Trevelyan’s, talk to the Valo Kas in the Qunari district about improving relations with the Trevelyan’s and Lavellan so the city doesn’t end in a blood bath, see what Leliana wants done with that prissy noble who insulted Josephine the other week.

“You’re thinking far too hard, _amatus_.”

“Just thinking about work. Tomorrow should be busy. I should go talk to Leliana, see what she wants me to do with that puffed up little shit in Orlais that’s been giving Lavellan trouble. If I’m going to be in Val Royeaux anyway I may as well handle him as well.”

Dorian kisses his chest again. “I’ll text her when we leave. She can have you after brunch. You can plot your world domination _after_ I get my waffles.”

“Thanks, _kadan_.” He’s silent for a beat, then- “Fucking _brunch_.”

Dorian snorts, tosses an arm over him, and he can feel the smile against his skin. “This is what our lives have come to. Almost vanilla sex and brunch in between you organizing hits and me rummaging around the archives in a law office. We’re some sort of awful harlequin cliché, and it’s _wonderful_.”

“Dorian?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Never change.”

He feels the smile widen, and lets himself sink into the blissful darkness of sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prequel to the main story of this series, which has Cullen and Krem as the main pair because I'm in rarepair hell and can't escape. 
> 
> heronfem.tumblr.com, come yell at me.


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